Two news articles grabbed me by the collar and got in my face. The first one, “How to cheat, courtesy of YouTube“, discusses common ways students “cheat” on tests, some featured on YouTube. At one point in the article a guidance counselor from Ohio asks, “What is that saying about our students and our society?” [...]
So much has been written about the necessity of changing schools. There have been myriad books, articles, commissions, special studies and yet schools remain essentially the same as when my father went to school in the early part of the 20th century. For my part, I’ve indicated in previous posts that the institution is impervious [...]
I’m getting into the swing of this blog thing! And like lots of writers I get stuck sometimes and brood for days over what the next steps are. So a special thanks to Kate Olson over at KateSays, designer and consultant, for nudging me to this post.
As I’ve mentioned before, Pat Dolan wrote one of [...]
N.Y. Times OpEd columnist Bob Herbert published a dandy on Saturday entitled “Hard Roads Ahead” that echoes my own thoughts: be it ignorance, laziness, or a simple choice not to do the hard work in schools, we are failing a generation of kids. We are not adequately taking care of our future by solidly preparing [...]
I was struck today by 3 separate pieces in the ASCD SmartBrief related to my last two posts and the front page of the site. School systems vigorously resist change despite the energy of well-intentioned people. These articles represent the same old pap we’ve done for such a long time—chase our tails (or run on [...]
I spent some time this weekend reading Clay Shirkey’s Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. While the book is not directly related to education or schools, it is a cogent analysis of organizations in times of dynamic change. I was struck by the similarity of the content to some reading I did [...]